


edge of providence

by adiduck (book_people), whimsicalimages



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Canonical Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Fix-It, General Kamino Warning, M/M, Slow Burn, Trauma, discussion of slavery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-12 02:54:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29253276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/book_people/pseuds/adiduck, https://archiveofourown.org/users/whimsicalimages/pseuds/whimsicalimages
Summary: “Are you going to kill me right here, Mand’alor?” Obi-Wan manages.Fett freezes, his hold loosening, and shoves away from him as if burned, getting to his feet. Obi-Wan coughs, looks up to where the man is watching him with some strange mix of emotion. His shields are exceptionally strong, for a null.“There is no Mand’alor,” Fett says finally, and walks right out of the room.(Or: 15-year-old Jedi Padawan Anakin Skywalker crash-lands on Kamino on the one day a cycle when the seas are calm and the storms abate. At the time, he doesn’t think much of it. Later—much later—he will come to see it as an omen.)
Relationships: Jango Fett/Obi-Wan Kenobi, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker
Comments: 74
Kudos: 516





	edge of providence

**Author's Note:**

> Please note: we are working to finish actually writing this fic by April per current estimates. It will be... very long. Really, just, like, so long. But we’re working on it! We are 2/3rds through writing it! So consider this your teaser trailer for a fic that will start regularly posting in, uh. Two months. Well-wishes appreciated. And yes, we are using fix-it day of jangobi week as an excuse to post the first chapter. 
> 
> Title is from [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4KkM-Do-v8). Sincerest thanks to the absolute village of betas without whom this fic would truly not be possible, including but not limited to Asuka, J, M, and Jo.
> 
> Also, mind the tags! Additional tags will be added as the story goes on, but if we’ve missed a specific tag, please let us know. Mando’a translations will be found in the end notes of each chapter or in hovertext on desktop.

**Act One.**

_(Anakin: 15; Cody: 13; Boba: 7)_

His little ship is already burning too hot and going too fast when he comes out of hyperspace, but Anakin barely has any thoughts to spare for the disappointed lecture he’s inevitably going to get from Huyang or—worse—from Obi-Wan. When Obi-Wan finds him. _If_ Obi-Wan finds him. 

But he’s Obi-Wan, Anakin reminds himself. Obi-Wan will always find him.

If Anakin can stay alive long enough to give him a chance. He pushes down the sick knowledge that he’d left Obi-Wan to face a bunch of pirates alone. Obi-Wan had told him to, had told him to take the data crystal with Master Narec’s last known coordinates and run, that he had to protect it.

In hindsight, Obi-Wan had probably been trying to protect him.

But first thing’s first—first thing’s not dying alone in the cold darkness of space when his engine turns him into a barbecue skewer.

First thing’s looking much easier than he thought.

He’s pretty sure he wasn’t supposed to come out of hyperspace anywhere near a human-hospitable planet, but the navicomputer is beeping at him urgently.

 _Unknown planet, location 1352.503.168. Terrain analysis suggests highly developed aquatic life and breathable atmosphere. Ground-based landmass negligible. At current trajectory, ship_ Stellar Wind _will land approximately two klicks from lifeform concentration._

Well. Good thing Obi-Wan taught him to swim after his first year in the Temple. Now he just has to survive the crash.

He pulls on the Force to distract himself from the heat of atmo, and begs the ship to give him a little more, just enough that he can jump out before hitting the water. The blackbox has a waterproof tracker that should work for a while and it’ll at least give any Jedi in the sector an alert about where the planet is and where his ship… will be. Underwater. He can pull out enough stuff from the navicomputer fast enough to make a commlink that _should_ work.

Probably. If he can get somewhere dry to build it.

But there’s no time for more than probably, so he sets to work, ignoring the fact that the ship is rapidly becoming a fireball. His pack can seal up tight and he can swim two klicks if he stuffs the heavy robe in there, too, so he does.

_Impact estimated in thirty seconds._

Fierfek. Well, there’s nothing for it. He opens the hatch and jumps, hitting the water while the ship keeps flying without him in it, probably going another klick before it impacts, sending up a pillar of smoke and saltwater spray.

He really, really hopes Obi-Wan got away from those pirates. Or at least that whoever lives here will see the smoke and be friendly. He’d maybe settle for ‘not murderous’ at this point.

He sighs, bobbing in the water, and stretches out his senses for life. The computer was right—there’s a huge number of lifeforms with human-feeling Force signatures and a bunch of other not-so-human ones—a settlement of some kind? He’ll have to find out. He squints harder, and there it is: the telltale shadow of light-colored buildings against the clear white sky.

It takes a while, swimming, but he can pull on the Force for a little bit of help and the waves are with him. The buildings are strangely domed, rising up out of the water on platforms, but they’re teeming with life and for now that’ll have to be enough. Maybe he won’t even need to build his own comm this time.

He grabs onto one of the ladders that leads directly into the water, ignoring the burn in his arms. He’s Jedi Padawan Anakin Skywalker. He can manage fine without Obi-Wan for now.

He climbs what has to be twenty stories before finally getting to a platform ledge, and it’s _cold_ out of the water. And windy. He unzips his pack and throws his—dry, his sincerest thanks to mission-grade Jedi waterproofing—cloak on. If he’s really lucky, whoever lives here might even spare him a towel.

He turns to find two identical-looking kids staring at him, frozen, and almost jumps a little. He hadn’t heard them at all. He probably should have sensed them, though. Obi-Wan’s always after him to spend more time paying attention to his surroundings.

Still. They don’t look hostile, and there’s no way they’re older than thirteen standard. They look like the older human initiates. “Hi,” he says, after neither of them seem like they’re going to start talking. “Do you speak Basic? I might need some help.”

“Who are you?” one of them asks, crossing his arms.

The other one tilts his head. “Are you the one whose ship crashed?”

“My name is Anakin,” he says, deciding that they probably don’t need the whole Jedi explanation. He needs to find an adult, and a comm. “And yeah, that was my ship. I didn’t know this planet existed.”

The kid looks him up and down, and nods decisively. Anakin’s pretty sure he just got marked ‘not a threat’ by a twelve-year. “I’m Fives,” the kid says, and points at his brother. “That’s Oh-Nine. He hasn’t picked a name yet.”

Anakin forces his expression to Jedi stillness. Some cultures pick names late, he tells himself. Or maybe these two just have really weird parents. His Temple teachers are big on emphasizing cultural differences.

“It’s nice to meet you,” he settles on. “Do you two know where I can find a comm to borrow? I left my—older brother—behind accidentally and he’ll be looking for me, but my ship—uh, well. You saw it.”

‘Older brother’ seems to be the key phrase, because both of them now look knowing. “We can take you to the comms room,” Oh-Nine says.

Fives leans in, conspiratorial. “We’re not supposed to go in there, but nobody is supposed to find Kamino, anyway, so you’re already breaking the rules.”

Rules? Anakin thinks, but doesn’t voice it. He’s getting one of Obi-Wan’s ‘bad feelings’ about all this. “Kamino?” he asks instead.

“You really didn’t know we were here,” Oh-Nine says, frowning. “We’re on the planet Kamino, and this is our home, Tipoca City.”

Anakin nods slowly. “Thanks for telling me.”

Oh-Nine nods back. “C’mon, we can go through the side door,” he says, adding under his breath, “Not like we were supposed to be out here anyway.”

Fives elbows him. “But now we know what the smoke was,” he says.

“Yeah, it was trouble,” Oh-Nine mutters. “Or it will be when the longnecks notice.” 

They get to an inconspicuous-looking door, unmarked, after crossing the bare expanse of the platform Anakin had clambered onto.

Fives taps a series of numbers into the keypad, but it blinks red. He and Oh-Nine frown at it.

“It worked earlier,” Fives says, sheepish.

“Tervho will kill us if we get locked out when we were supposed to be doing her modules,” Oh-Nine hisses.

“Nah, Tervho’s nice,” Fives says dismissively. “Rex said so, and Rex is always right about the trainers. He was right about Gilamar, too.”

Oh-Nine rolls his eyes. “Gilamar has to be nice to us, he’s the head medic.”

Anakin clears his throat, getting the sense they’ve forgotten he’s there. “I can take a look at the door,” he offers. “I’m pretty good with mechanics.”

Fives and Oh-Nine glance at each other, and shrug in tandem, letting him through. Anakin puts a hand over the keypad and closes his eyes. He can see the code almost clearly enough, but then he feels that there’s someone getting nearer and—already at the door on the other side.

He instinctively pulls back and steps in front of the brothers, hand hovering over his lightsaber, and the door swishes open to reveal a tall, thin being with a long white neck.

“Welcome, Master Jedi,” says the white alien, as Fives and Oh-Nine snap to attention like soldiers behind him, something like _panic_ coming off them in waves.

“...Hello,” Anakin tries. He supposes the robes are a pretty obvious giveaway, but most of the galaxy doesn’t know what a Jedi looks like.

“We were not expecting you for some time yet,” the being says. “The product is not yet ready.”

 _Product?_ All sorts of alarm bells are going off in Anakin’s head. What the kark does this being think the Jedi are interested in buying here? All he’s seen is water, water, and more water. Saltwater, at that. 

“There was an accident with my ship, and I thought I could, uh, stop here to wait for a pickup. Fives and Oh-Nine were showing me the way in,” he says.

A pause, as the being stares at him. “Of course,” she says. “I am Taun We, aide to Kaminoan Prime Minister Lama Su. We are always happy to host our clients. Please, follow me.”

Anakin sneaks a glance back at Fives and Oh-Nine, but neither of them are looking at him, postures ramrod-straight. He doesn’t know what’s going on with them and Taun We, but he’s pretty sure he doesn’t like it.

Taun We leads them down a hall, and pauses at a branch-off point, turning to the brothers. “Cadets, please return to your lessons. Your retrieval of the Jedi was well done.”

Fives and Oh-Nine nod in sync, their relief pouring out into the air, and walk off, leaving Anakin with Taun We. Well, nothing for it. No one here seems to want to harm him—so far. “Cadets?” he asks.

Taun We looks at him. “Yes,” she says. “They will be cadets for up to four more years. Until the full order is complete.”

“Right,” Anakin says, not sure how to prod that one apart.

“I am afraid we are unprepared for immediate inspection, but if you like, I can make arrangements for a tour of the facilities later today.”

“A tour would be great,” Anakin says. More information is good, right? There’s no killing intent he can feel from anyone nearby, and he’s got nothing but time until Obi-Wan shows up.

Taun We inclines her head. “For now, here is a room prepared for your convenience, so you may rest.” She glides to a stop before an otherwise unremarkable door and puts a hand to it. It slides open. “I will send another aide to retrieve you in approximately 6 standard hours. If you require human food, please use the commlink to the left of the door.”

“Thanks,” Anakin says, feeling a little like he’s being herded into the room. “Any chance I could get a commlink to call my, uh, Jedi associates, to let them know I’ve arrived?”

Taun We pauses. “Of course, Master Jedi. I will have it arranged when the aide arrives.” She bows again, and the door slides shut.

Anakin turns around, frowns at the lack of—pretty much anything, except what seems like it might be intended as a bed, and a tiny fresher. Well, kark that. If this isn’t a cell, then they can’t make him stay in it, and he wants to know more about the _cadets_.

He sinks into the Force, and finds that there’s an absolute sea of little lights around him. But he knows two of them; he’s always been pretty good at finding specific Force signatures, so he reaches out, and—there they are. Not too far away. He comes out of it and blinks. Were all those lights ‘cadets?’ How many of them are there? He wonders if they’re all Fives’ and Oh-Nine’s age. That’s a lot of human kids to recruit.

He shrugs off the thoughts. He’ll know more soon enough. The door isn’t locked from the inside, and opens easily when he presses a palm to it, pulling some of his shields up as he goes. Taun We hadn’t told him he was stuck there, but she hadn’t exactly said he could go anywhere, so he’s betting he’ll be better off if nobody notices him wandering around. And this way, when Obi-Wan gets here, Anakin will be able to give him more details.

Following the thread of Fives and Oh-Nine in the Force, he almost stumbles when he passes by a massive glass wall and sees behind it what looks like a cafeteria full of beings moving around, all wearing identical maroon tunics. He peers closer, and then recoils, slamming his shields up.

Everyone in that room looks exactly the same.

He forces himself to keep walking. Clones, he thinks. Twelve-year clones. Oh, fierfek, what has he gotten into?

Clone cadets? An “order” for the Jedi? Taun We had said something about _product._

He would give his left arm for Obi-Wan to get here _right now_.

He keeps up the shielding all the way down the halls to where he can sense Fives and Oh-Nine. They said they could take him to a comms room, and maybe he can at least learn a little more about whatever the kriff is going on here. Clones, he thinks again, a little hysterical.

He reaches for the Force to sense a code, but there’s too much confusion, he’s too unsettled, and he’s not exactly about to drop into meditation to sort himself out right now. Instead, he curses under his breath at the keypad, which does kark-all, so he gives up on figuring out the code and just uses the Force to find and press the right internal wire. Obi-Wan would disapprove of the blunt use, but Anakin’s honestly just hoping that he doesn’t break the door.

It slides open and three identical pairs of eyes are on him. Two are Fives and Oh-Nine, frozen before what looks like mid-lecture from a new brother. A new _clone_. This one is blond.

“Hey, guys,” Anakin says weakly.

There’s dead silence for long minutes.

“You didn’t say you were a Jedi!” Fives bursts out first, and Oh-Nine runs a hand over his face, muttering something.

“There’s no way he’s a Jedi,” the new brother says. Anakin is going to have to call him Blondie if he doesn’t introduce himself. “He can’t be older than one of the nulls. No way he’s old enough to be a trainer.”

“I’m a Jedi Padawan,” Anakin says. “An apprentice. Like a student. Sorry I didn’t say—I didn’t think it would matter? Most people have never interacted with a Jedi.”

Force, he _really_ wishes Taun We had given him a commlink immediately. He would love to talk to absolutely anyone at the Temple. He’d even take Master Windu.

Oh-Nine looks at Blondie. “Aren’t Padawans supposed to be Commanders? We haven’t done the structural units yet.”

“Commanders in _what?_ ” Anakin asks.

“In the army,” Blondie says. “The one we’re going to be part of.”

“What army?” he asks, showing what he thinks is frankly a great deal of patience dealing with a situation that seems like it’s turning into one of the terrible holoflicks Obi-Wan pretends he doesn’t watch.

Blondie looks at him askance. “The one for the Jedi.”

Anakin stares. “There has to be some kind of mistake here,” he says. “The Jedi are—we’re peacekeepers. None of us would ever want an army.”

“Well, you’ve got one,” Blondie says. 

“I’m pretty sure none of the Jedi I know have any idea you guys exist,” Anakin says, about ready to throw up his hands. Obi-Wan is so much better at these things. 

“Are you sure you’re a _real_ Jedi?” Blondie asks, crossing his arms. 

“Rex!” Oh-Nine says, scandalized. 

Blondie—Rex, apparently—huffs. “He doesn’t _seem_ like a Jedi.”

Anakin is going to tear his hair out trying to get a stubborn twelve-year to believe that he’s a Jedi. “Do you want to see my lightsaber? Will that convince you?”

“A _jetii’kad_?” Fives breathes, and Oh-Nine leans in, eyes wide as saucers. Even Rex looks intrigued.

“You have a lightsaber?” Rex asks.

The door slides open, and all of them freeze before Anakin moves, but it’s another identical kid. Rex immediately relaxes. “What took you so long, Codes?” 

“Shut up, I’m lucky Priest didn’t have us doing laps until nightcycle again.” The new boy looks Anakin up and down, and crosses his arms just like Rex had. “You’re the Jedi. My name is Cody.” 

He says his name like he’s daring Anakin to comment on it. Weird. Anakin has seen some weird poodoo, but this is all so karking weird. Clones, he keeps thinking.

“My name is Anakin,” he says. “Anakin Skywalker. It’s nice to meet you, Cody.” Then, because the others had seemed curious and he knows intimately how cool a lightsaber looks when you see one for the first time and maybe a little bit because it would be something nice and familiar for him, he continues: “D’you want to see my lightsaber?” 

“Yes,” Fives says. 

Cody looks torn between the seriousness he’d clearly been trying to project and his brothers’ curiosity. Finally, he nods.

Anakin pulls out the hilt and ignites it, casting blue light across the room and throwing the boys’ awed expressions into stark relief.

“Okay?” Anakin asks, after holding it out for a very thorough, wide-eyed inspection. “Am I a Jedi, yet?”

All four of them look up at him, visibly hesitating. “You _might_ be a Jedi,” Oh-Nine allows, eyes narrowing speculatively.

“How do we know you didn’t just steal it from a Jedi?” Fives asks, and crosses his arms. Anakin might have been offended if Fives wasn’t doing such a bad job at covering up his eagerness. “I think you should do a Jedi thing to make sure.”

“ _Fives,_ ” Rex hisses, as Cody sighs the sigh of a person at least four times his age.

“What?”

“You can’t just ask a Jedi to—”

“He’s just being thorough,” Oh-Nine interrupts, and Fives puffs up.

“Yeah! I’m just being—”

Anakin deactivates his lightsaber. Four pairs of eyes snap to him all at once.

“What do you want to see?” he asks, and can’t help but grin at the utter _delight_ that flows off them all into the room, bright and sparking.

“Can you read my mind?” Oh-Nine asks, and he closes his eyes, brow furrowing in concentration.

“Uh,” Anakin says. “Not really? That’s not—I can tell that you’re concentrating and that you’re excited, but I can’t actually read your mind. If you projected a thought at me really hard, I’d probably catch it, but most people who aren’t Force-users don’t know how to do that.” 

Oh-Nine and Fives look equally disappointed, but Fives rallies first. “Can you fly?” 

Anakin scoffs. “Can I fly? I’m the best pilot the Jedi have!” he says, but smiles and continues when Fives opens his mouth. “I think you meant without a ship, though. There’s not a lot of space in here, but I can float you?” 

Fives is already nodding fervently, so Anakin tugs on the Force—these kids are so small, and the Force loves them whether they can feel it or not—and lifts him gently into the air. 

There’s an indrawn breath that’s almost a gasp that he thinks comes from Cody’s direction, but he’s focused on not letting Fives fall even though the kid is twisting like an eel trying to figure out the mechanics. Anakin sets him down after a few seconds, only slightly winded. He hopes nobody on this base is Force-sensitive, or this little escapade is busted. 

Rex and Oh-Nine look at each other, and then Rex looks at Cody, who makes a face.

Rex turns to Anakin. “I want to go next,” he says, chin up and determined. 

Anakin grins.

-

If nothing else, the pirates had had a robust medical set-up, for which Obi-Wan is immensely grateful.

He is less grateful, of course, at the utter travesty that remains of his clothing. It is never pleasant to have to strip dead men of their own leathers to replace what he’s wearing, but he unfortunately has very little choice if he doesn’t want to go looking for his Padawan in torn and interestingly-stained attire. He liberates a comm as well, spends a moment downloading all the information on it onto a separate datachip for slicing later, and tries to hail Anakin. He gets no response, which is concerning but not altogether surprising. If nothing else, Anakin wouldn’t recognize this identification number. Triangulating the blackbox tracker that had been on their ship is similarly a lost cause.

He sighs, then he spaces the bodies of the unfortunate pirates and his old clothes before turning his attention to the controls of the ship, and the tug on his bond to Anakin that will at the very least give him a direction to fly in.

Anakin is distressed, but that’s not so surprising. What’s concerning, Obi-Wan muses, as he lets the ship computer calculate where he should jump to hyperspace based on the general direction he can feel Anakin in, is that Anakin feels some strange mix of protective and _confused_.

Obi-Wan makes the jump to hyperspace, and then settles back into the chair to meditate. He will, after all, need to use the Force, if he wants to know precisely when to slow himself back down.

-

After he’s floated all of them and also several pieces of furniture that aren’t bolted down, Cody fixes him with a serious look. 

“If you’re a Jedi, why didn’t you know about us? Is it because you’re still a cadet, like we are? We don’t get told anything outside of training.”

Anakin shakes his head. “I don’t think any of the Jedi know about you,” he admits. 

“But the Jedi—we were made for the Jedi,” Rex says. “Even the trainers say it.”

“Priest’s always saying a true _mando’ad_ can keep up with a Jedi, and since we can’t keep up with him we know we’re not,” Fives mutters. 

Anakin’s heart might be breaking, a little bit. “I don’t know whose idea this was,” he says. “But my ship’s navicomputer uses the complete Jedi starmap, and it didn’t even know there was a planet here. I think whoever came to the Kaminoans wanted them to think that this was the Jedi’s idea, but the Jedi—we aren’t soldiers, and there’s no war.” He shakes his head. “There’s no way the Jedi ordered an army.” 

“So—the Jedi won’t want us?” Oh-Nine asks, turning wide brown eyes on Anakin. Oh no. 

“No, no,” Anakin backpedals. “That’s not what I meant. The Jedi protect children, they’ll protect you. It’s just, they don’t...” he trails off, trying to figure out a way to tell these twelve-years that no one is ‘made for’ anyone, nobody is anyone’s property, least of all Jedi property. 

“They don’t know we exist,” Cody says. 

“Yeah,” Anakin says, giving up.

“But we’re not children,” Rex says. “We’re clones. We’ll be soldiers. _We’re_ the ones meant to protect the Jedi, not the other way around.”

Anakin stares. “You _are_ children. You can’t be older than thirteen. The age of majority for humans and near-humans is eighteen on Coruscant, and before that, you’re a child. Legally.” He knows this because Obi-Wan has told him repeatedly that he can podrace again when he’s reached eighteen and no sooner.

“I’m almost the equivalent of thirteen standard,” Cody rattles off, and nods at his brothers. “They’d be just under twelve. But Rex is right, we’re not children. And we’re not on Coruscant.” 

Okay. Okay. He puts aside the issue of them being very clearly human _children_ , because this has raised yet another terrifying question. “Equivalent of thirteen standard?”

Oh-Nine blinks at him. “Because of the accelerated aging,” he says, like that’s obvious and not genuinely, absolutely the worst possible thing he could be saying to Anakin in this moment. “We were decanted almost six standard rotations ago, and Cody was decanted about half a standard rotation before us.”

Anakin stares at them, suddenly dizzy. His lips feel sort of numb. “You’re six,” he repeats, slowly.

The four of them look back at him, wariness creeping in at his reaction. Fives shrugs, sheepish, like being _six_ is _vaguely embarrassing_.

“Twelve and thirteen are more accurate, developmentally,” Cody assures him, like somehow that’s better. Like that’s supposed to help.

Anakin closes his eyes. If Obi-Wan were here, he would tell him to breathe and marshal his thoughts before he says anything, so Force is he going to try. “So either way, you’re children,” he says finally. “Developmentally, you’re children. And in standard years, you’re _definitely_ children. And the Jedi protect children.” Rex opens his mouth, and Anakin points a finger at him. “No. The trainers or the Kaminoans or—whoever—might have said you’re supposed to protect the Jedi, but not yet, right? For now, the Jedi will protect you. I’m a Jedi and I say so.” 

“That’s still the wrong way around,” Fives mutters. 

“And you said you aren’t even a full Jedi yet,” Cody says, crossing his arms. “You can’t make any promises.” 

Anakin’s head hurts. “I’m not a Jedi Knight yet,” he says. “I’m a learner. But I am a Jedi, and my Master listens to me, and he’ll listen when I explain all this. Being a Jedi is like—it’s a cultural thing. Jedi are just Force-users who pledge themselves to the Light side of the Force.” 

Oh-Nine squints. “What if you have the Force but you don’t know how to use it and the Jedi never find you?” 

Anakin shrugs. “Then you’re not a Jedi, but the Jedi didn’t find me until I was nine, and I’m a Jedi now.” At the four identical skeptical looks, Anakin spreads his hands, continues, “Sorry. I’m not great at explaining this. Once my Master shows up, you can ask him about the Jedi. He was raised as one, he’s been a Jedi his whole life.”

“A General?” Rex asks. “Jedi Masters are supposed to be Generals.” 

“In the army,” Anakin finishes, resigned. “Got it. Well, he’s not a General. He’s just my teacher. And technically he isn’t a Master until I finish my apprenticeship. Right now he’s a Knight.”

“Knights are also Generals,” Cody says. “Some Masters will be High Generals.”

“Which ones?” Anakin asks, and then all of a sudden something bursts into being like a star on the edge of his mind, and Anakin closes his eyes for a moment, relishing the warmth as the bond comes online from where it had felt muted. 

Obi-Wan’s just dropped out of hyperspace. 

-

He’s barely in hyperspace for half an hour when the Force _screams_ at him to stop, and he lunges for the controls and pulls himself into realspace all at once, heart pounding in his temples and breath coming fast in his lungs, just before he might have crashed headlong into a planet that should not exist.

He stares, sitting back again, lets himself have a few moments to catch his breath. “Well,” he says finally, to no one. “I suppose this explains the confusion.”

It’s not difficult to figure out where Anakin would have landed. There are startlingly few areas of life on this planet—perhaps understandable, considering it appears to be entirely an ocean world—and besides, the moment he enters the system Anakin latches on like a gundark and starts sending urgent _hurry-hurry-hurry_ signals and emphatic tugs to the right place. Obi-Wan sends back a wave of calm, concern for his physical well-being. The scoff he can almost hear through the bond is reassuring, at least.

Less reassuring, unfortunately, is the armed group of Mandalorians that greet him on landing, and the being Obi-Wan can’t identify standing at the front—tall and displeased. At the inconvenience of Obi-Wan’s presence, no doubt. 

Fortunately, he has a great deal of experience being an inconvenience. 

Obi-Wan takes a deep breath, hides his lightsaber and comm out of sight—best not to take any chances—and walks out of the hatch with both hands up.

“Hello there,” he says, and smiles in a way he knows is utterly disarming. “It appears I may have stumbled somewhere I shouldn’t have.” In the back, one of the Mandalorians snorts.

The being in the front ignores this, frowning down at Obi-Wan like he’s simply ruined their entire day. “I am Taun We,” they say. “This is a restricted zone, and I must ask you to leave this planet immediately.” 

Most beings out here past the Rim have never even seen a Jedi. Between that and this being’s… protection, Obi-Wan reasons, a simpler explanation might be best. Besides, he can’t sense much hostility from this strange being, or even from their guards, for all Obi-Wan knows that doesn’t mean all that much with a Mandalorian in full _beskar’gam_ , and Anakin hasn’t shown up yet to make himself known beyond what Obi-Wan can feel through the bond. 

“I’m a teacher,” he settles for. “I’m here looking for someone, but it seems we’ve had a miscommunication. Apologies for the inconvenience, but I really must find him.” 

Taun We blinks, and behind them, the Mandalorians all visibly startle, shifting on their feet. Obi-Wan suspects the internal comms are rather lively at the moment. “A trainer? We did not know the template was recruiting any more trainers.” 

‘The template’ and ‘trainers.’ The waves of confusion and worry he’s been getting from Anakin are starting to make a little more sense.

Well. If it gets the job done. “I’m a late addition. I’m afraid there was little time to warn you of my arrival,” Obi-Wan prevaricates. 

He gets a sense of displeasure from Taun We, but they don’t say anything to contradict him. “Of course. The template is off-planet currently, so I will take you to meet with Prime Minister Lama Su to activate your security clearance.” 

“Thank you,” Obi-Wan says, and watches the Mandalorians—also trainers?—lower their blasters. “I would appreciate that.”

-

“Obi-Wan,” Anakin hisses, as Obi-Wan comes out of Lama Su’s office, wearing the expression that means he’s utterly bewildered and doing his very best to hide it. Anakin had extricated himself from the cadets’ bunkroom after a few more questions, a couple last stories. He’d told them that Obi-Wan was coming, and they’d gone all serious and sent him off, and now Obi-Wan really is here. _Finally_.

Obi-Wan’s eyes shoot to him, sudden and sharp, and then take him in top to bottom. He opens his mouth—

—And shuts it again as Anakin shakes his head urgently, tries to project _no, quiet_ through the bond. He reaches out and grabs Obi-Wan’s sleeve—not a Jedi robe, which explains why they didn’t clock him immediately the way they did Anakin. He glances left and right—no Kaminoans—and yanks his Master back down the hallway the way he came.

“Thank kark you’re here,” he hisses, as Obi-Wan, startled, picks up his pace to try to keep up. “This place is _really messed up_!”

“I am getting that impression,” Obi-Wan replies. “It also seems I missed your Knighting, because I was informed there was a Knight Skywalker from the Jedi Order here waiting for a ship.” 

“Yeah, I, uh,” Anakin says, hurrying along. “The Kaminoans might be convinced that I’m a full, adult Knight. I don’t think they deal much with humans besides the ones they’ve apparently _cloned_.” 

“An understandable deception,” Obi-Wan allows, tugging back a bit on Anakin’s grip—presumably to slow him down. “Care to explain the rush?” 

Anakin hisses and grips harder. “We can’t talk here, you need to talk to the cadets,” he insists, glancing side to side at the end of the hallway and then dragging them through a security door into a new corridor. “There are two million cadets, and they’re all here because someone cloned them to be an army—”

“I did gather that much,” Obi-Wan tells him.

“I know, but you heard it from the Kaminoans,” Anakin says. “You need to talk to the cadets.”

“Anakin,” Obi-Wan says again, all exasperation, and tries to drag his feet.

“Trust me,” Anakin says, and Obi-Wan… stops dragging his feet. Good. “You’re not gonna get the full story from the Kaminoans and the trainers. They’re all under thirteen, Obi-Wan. Under thirteen _developmentally_ , because they’re _actually under seven_.”

“I know it’s bad,” Obi-Wan assures him, and it’s such a relief Anakin nearly stops right there in the hallway as the tension leaves his shoulders. But he has to keep walking. He needs to get his Master to the people who actually need his help, and he can’t be seen doing it.

Then he realizes he left out something critical, still. “They weren’t just cloned to be an army. They were cloned to be an army for the Jedi.” 

Obi-Wan, his unflappable Master, almost stumbles, shock clear in the Force. “ _What?”_

“Yeah,” Anakin says, grim. “And the Kaminoans refer to them as ‘product.’ As an ‘order for the Jedi.’” He pauses, then says what he’s thinking. “It’s like Tatooine.” 

“Anakin,” Obi-Wan says, pulling him to a stop and taking him by the shoulders right there in the hall to look him in the eye. “My ship is docked. You needn’t stay. You can go to Coruscant and I can remain here to sort this out.” 

For a moment, it’s tempting, to leave and run away from this. But—Fives had looked so happy when Anakin was doing his silly floating tricks. “No,” he decides. “I’m staying with you. We’re a team, we’ll figure it out together.”

Obi-Wan’s gaze softens. “All right, Padawan,” he says. “We’ll talk about this when you’re ready.”

Oh, Force. Anakin makes a face, even though he feels warm, like he’s been wrapped in a blanket. “If we have to,” he says. “Come on.”

“We do have to,” Obi-Wan says, smiling. “But you always get to choose when.”

Anakin ignores him. “Look, just, you have to talk to the cadets. They’re not going to trust you, so you’re going to have to fix that,” he tells him, hauling him along again in his wake—left turn, down a set of stairs towards the dorms—still no Kaminoans. Good.

Obi-Wan starts to drag his feet again. “They won’t?” he asks, in that tone that means Anakin hasn’t actually managed to convey everything he wanted to say again, and Obi-Wan would like him to please fix that before they jump out of the fighter into zero-g. “You just said they wanted to talk to me.”

“No, I said you _have_ to talk to them,” Anakin says, and tugs. “But they’re still not gonna trust you. You. It’s—” He grimaces, not sure how to explain.

“You told Lama Su you’re a trainer,” he lands on, feeling around his instinctive, bone-deep knowledge that these kids would take one look at his Master and decide he’s a threat. “They’ll have heard about that by now.” Obi-Wan had gone from the door to Lama Su’s office, and still Anakin has no doubt that the cadets have absolutely heard. “Even if they know you’re a Jedi, that’s not going to help, and a lot of the trainers…”

“Ah,” Obi-Wan says, and catches up to Anakin’s stride, something settling like durasteel on the other side of the bond. “Who’d be best for me to speak to, to clear that up?”

-

Anakin leaves Obi-Wan out in the hall when they get to the dorms. He doesn’t want to, he wants to throw his Master at these twelve-years and wash his hands of the whole mess. He can’t do that, though, because until they believe him when he says Obi-Wan wants to help, they absolutely won’t let him. To them, Anakin is a _teenager_ , not a trainer-age Jedi, and certainly not a trainer himself. It’s why Cody even let him stay to talk to them, and why he let the others talk. Anakin remembers what that’s like—to instinctively just shut your mouth, shut down, when a slave master walks by, even if it isn’t your own. To know bone-deep that any strange adult was not to be trusted, especially for the under-fourteens.

And, if the Kaminoans are to be believed, Obi-Wan _is_ their master. Or, one of them. The Jedi Order with an army of child soldiers. It makes Anakin feel sick.

But he’d told Obi-Wan he was staying to see it through, and he is.

He’s glad he left Obi-Wan out in the hall, anyway, when the door opens and all the cadets in the room _snap_ to attention before realizing it’s him and relaxing. There are three more of them now, eyeing Anakin like they’re supremely dubious about his general existence. Anakin waves at them, and watches one of them narrow his eyes, speculatively.

“Where is he?” Fives asks, clearly frustrated. “You said you were going to get him!”

“I wanted to make sure it’s okay to bring him in,” Anakin told them, and watched as a few of them relaxed a bit more. “He just wants to talk.”

“What does he want to talk about?” Rex asks, wariness in every line of him.

“About what it’s like to live here,” Anakin insists. “He wants to help.”

“He told the longnecks he’s a trainer,” Cody points out, voice a little sharp, and Anakin pats himself on the back for being right that they’d know about that, even though there’s really no way any of the cadets in this dorm could have been there to hear about it. The grapevine’s as strong here as it was on Tatooine.

“He’s undercover,” Anakin assures. “He’s not a trainer.” 

Cody scowls. He’s not the only one. 

“Look,” Anakin tries, feeling a little desperate, “if you just talked to him—” Down the bond, Obi-Wan sends a wave of calm. _Stop. Breathe. Focus. What do they need to hear?_

Right. Diplomacy. He took that class. He’d nearly flunked it, but he’d definitely taken it. And anyway, his Master’s the best negotiator in the Order. Negotiation, okay.

“What would you need to believe that he’s here to help?” Anakin asks, feeling along what he remembers from two cycles ago. “I can do my best to get it for you.”

He’s met with startled silence, and the cadets all look at each other, assessing.

“Come on,” Anakin wheedles. “You know _I’m_ on your side.”

The silence stretches for a long, long moment.

“If we’re going to be allies, we need to have an agreement,” Cody says, shaking his head. “We can’t just walk in without knowing anything about him.”

Several pairs of brown eyes turn to Anakin, calculating. Anakin grits his teeth—he knows the place these kids are coming from, when it comes to strangers—tries to find the words to explain that Obi-Wan isn’t _like that_ , that Obi-Wan would sooner die than try to harm a child. Hells, he’s fifteen and almost a Senior Padawan and he knows Obi-Wan still worries about him. Obi-Wan had _sent him here_ because he was worried about him.

“I trust him with my life,” he finally says. “He’ll help, he promised. He’s my brother.” 

Rex breathes out and then stands a little straighter at that. “If Anakin trusts him, I’ll trust him,” he says.

Cody frowns. “I still want a negotiation.” 

Facing a sea of identical twelve-years that look at him like that, Obi-Wan is probably going to give them anything they ask for, but Anakin doesn’t say that. “If you write up a list of terms, he’ll read them over and be willing to make a compact,” he proposes. There. Score one for Anakin Skywalker’s diplomacy skills. 

Obi-Wan sends a ripple of amusement through their bond, and then a sense that he’s going to leave them to it and go sneak around the base. Anakin returns his agreement, and Obi-Wan gets a little farther in the Force, a little dimmer. 

Cody is frowning at Anakin like he is absolutely certain that Anakin is full of poodoo but is too polite to say anything about it. They should definitely send Cody out to talk to Obi-Wan. They can have a frown-conversation and Obi-Wan will melt. “Do we have any flimsi?” Anakin prods, looking around the room at the other children. 

There’s stillness for a moment, and then a scramble as they dive under sleeping platforms, inside the space between the opening of the bunk tube and where the front slides in. Someone hauls open the laundry chute and carefully slips their arm up along it, tongue out in concentration.

“Here!” the cadet says, holding a piece of flimsiplast up triumphantly. Oh-Nine produces a pen. Both of these are passed to Cody, who sits down right there on the floor and clicks the pen open.

“We start with training considerations,” he declares, and gets a room full of groans. “No,” he says. “It took Gilamar a whole cycle to get us recreation time, we have to secure it.” Anakin very, very, _very_ carefully does not let himself think of the implications of the head medic having to fight to carve recreation time out of training. Cody looks at Anakin. “Will he agree to the full hour?”

“More colors during meals,” interrupts one of the cadets whose name Anakin hasn’t learned yet, and Anakin gives up, sits down, and fights the urge to put his head in his hands. “Cody, add a line about meals. Tell him we want more of the green protein cubes.”

“Gross,” someone else says. “Ask for the blue ones. The green ones are the color of radioactive sludge.”

“ _That’s why they’re the best—_ ”

“He’ll agree to all of that,” Anakin assures Cody. At this point, he’s more worried about Obi-Wan having a minor breakdown about the two million twelve-years who think the Jedi are their war generals and an hour of recreation time a day is a huge ask. “Keep going.”

-

As far as he can sense, the platform city is brimming with life. Obi-Wan carefully follows the constellation of the largest group he can sense, all bright lights in the Force, making certain to keep his presence muted—a constant, steady Force suggestion of nothing-to-see-here. He’s never had Qui-Gon’s or Anakin’s skill with the Living Force, but it wouldn’t do for anyone to notice him, and he can hide himself in plain sight well enough. 

There’s a faint sense that Anakin has passed through this hall before him, and he pauses in front of an enormous window that looks out onto some sort of cafeteria. He blinks. The dining hall is emptying out, but all those who remain are children in identical tunics, throwing out or finishing off cubes of food that seem to only come in three colors. 

Yes, Anakin would be unhappy seeing this. Obi-Wan can’t say he’s especially pleased, himself. 

He turns away to make his way down another corridor—empty but for doors that seem to lead to maintenance corridors, lined with windows out onto the dark, rough sea surrounding the facility, storm clouds threatening—and around a bend into a hallway lined with classrooms built like amphitheaters. They’re filled with cadets in the same uniforms bent over holoscreens, headsets on and focusing on what’s in front of them with a level of intensity strange to see in children so young.

The silence is eerie, and nearly absolute, a tension held in the air in each room that Obi-Wan passes that doesn’t seem to fit with the scene itself, until Obi-Wan pauses to look at the screens and realizes with a jolt that they are like no learning modules he’s ever seen. Images flash by so fast they make Obi-Wan dizzy, like staring into hyperspace long enough to sear streaks of light behind your eyelids.

It seems, Obi-Wan thinks, a brutal way to teach children as young as eight. He sees one child gripping their chair like they’re holding themself steady, mouthing along to something as though struggling to keep up. A trainer several levels above is watching that one, arms crossed.

Obi-Wan wonders what happens to the children who don’t manage to complete the modules. He has a feeling he won’t like the answer.

He slips away, following the wisps of the Force tugging on his attention. More slate-grey halls, more windows. Outside, the sky has opened up into drenching rain. 

Obi-Wan pauses before an open door, hearing voices and cloaking himself in the Force more thoroughly. With the number of Mandalorians in beskar on this base, he needs to be as careful as possible.

There’s an adult—a trainer, likely, wearing full armor—circling a child wearing some sort of padding meant for light sparring and wavering slightly on their feet. The child looks younger than fourteen standard. 

The trainer lashes out with a combination the child has no possible way of following, though they do their best to block some of it before they take a hit that forces them to the ground. 

“Get up,” the trainer says, and the child grits their teeth, shoves their legs underneath them and lurches to their feet, stumbling just a little as they achieve upright.

They don’t cry out as they almost immediately hit the mats again, trainer snorting as he pulls his leg back in from where he swept the child’s ankles out from under him. “You call yourself a warrior,” the trainer sneers, and the child still doesn’t make a sound. “Get up.” The child tries to stand. “Get _up_ —” the trainer snaps, and the child lurches upright again, like they were jerked by a string. “What the kriff is Fett teaching you? Pathetic.”

“As you say, sir,” the child says—the first thing Obi-Wan heard from them, forced out through gritted teeth. The trainer throws another punch, and the child ducks under it, throws a punch into the trainer’s gut and takes a swing at his head as it comes in range. The trainer catches the fist, slams his head into the child’s in a head-butt that must make _both_ their brains rattle, and the child goes down without a sound one more time.

“Pathetic,” the trainer sneers again, and turns to tap something into a console. “Best tell Fett to up your hand-to-hand, little alpha. You’ll never make it on a battlefield. Run along to medical.”

“Yes, sir,” says the child, somehow managing to get up again. 

Obi-Wan presses himself to the wall as the—the alpha, he supposes—limps out of the room _._ He stifles the urge to pick up the child and carry them to a medbay. He can’t break cover yet, and there will be time later, and—

The child is slowly, doggedly walking down the hall with no assistance, and Force does Obi-Wan remember what it was to be fourteen and refusing help from anyone. His intervention wouldn’t be appreciated here, now.

Still, he sends a wave of _strength_ to the child, and their motions become a little smoother, a little less pained. 

He exhales, Anakin pulling on the bond, and turns his feet back to where he’d walked from, tucking his emotions away.

**Author's Note:**

> Mando’a:  
> jetii’kad - lightsaber  
> mando’ad - Mandalorian  
> beskar’gam - beskar armor
> 
> No, Jango is not in chapter one. You’ll see him in April. We will not be taking questions at this time. :) Catch us on tumblr at [@keensers](https://keensers.tumblr.com) & [@adiduck](https://adiduck.tumblr.com). Comments are beloved!


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